In the manner of a leathery, hard-riding, one-eyed Western marshal, the Avalanche showed true grit Sunday night and rallied for an old-time, overtime, good-time playoff victory.

Well, it seemed just like a playoff victory.

“Every game for the last month has been like a playoff game for us,” Avs goalie Peter Budaj said. Booyah!

Avs coach Joel Quenneville said the 4-3 triumph of some magnitude “definitely was like the playoffs for us.” He called the Avalanche’s comeback from a two-goal deficit in the third period and a one-goal difference with four minutes remaining “the most thrilling and the most exciting” of the season. And most entertaining.

The desperate Avs and the delirious sellout crowd acted as if it were the seventh game of a playoff series … between Colorado and Detroit.

The Democratic Convention won’t be as wild.

Don’t tell anybody here that it was a garden-variety regular-season game with San Jose.

In a 24-hour span – with the Nuggets’ victory over Phoenix and the Avalanche’s victory over San Jose – that arena was jumping like Jack Flash and spitting and spewing great balls and pucks of fire.

It had been awhile since Our Dusty Old Cowtown saw such back-to-back delight. Start singing Colorado’s new (co-)state song.

Maybe the winter of our discontent (read: snow) finally is over, and spring has sprung for the Nugs and the Avs.

Allen Iverson went for 44 points and 15 assists Saturday night. Joe Sakic went for four points on four assists Sunday night. The Answer and The Reply.

Just when it appeared that the Avalanche was dead, and the Nuggets were dying, both are alive and, well, making it interesting, maybe even more so for the Avs than when they were skating into the playoffs.

“We’re really having a lot of fun,” said Milan Hejduk, who scored the winning goal 19 seconds into overtime after a pass from No. 19.

The critical numbers for the Avalanche are Dr Pepper – 10, 2 and 4.

The Avs have 10 games left, including two with Calgary, and are four points behind the Flames for the eighth (and playoff final) spot in the Western Conference.

And the Avalanche players have to depend on nobody but themselves.

“We’re in a position that if we keep winning, we can be where we want to be,” Budaj said.

Let me translate for Budaj, who is from Slovakia.

The Avalanche has 80 points, Calgary 84. They are even at 72 games. They are even for the season at three games apiece. They play two more – April 3 in Calgary and on the last day of the season, April 8, in Denver.

The last is a makeup from Dec. 21, when one of the 50 snowstorms postponed the game. Wouldn’t it be odd if that game determines the playoff team. Very well could be.

If the Avalanche maintains pace with the slumping Flames in the teams’ other eight games and then wins those two close encounters, the Avs are in, the Flames out.

That’s what the Avalanche goalie was trying to say. You don’t have to translate that he is 26-15-5 in net and getting stronger.

Avalanche general manager Francois Giguere is a former accountant (and probably owns a calculator and a pocket protector). He is doing some serious numbers crunching these days, and he has become a serious fan of Detroit and Nashville. Those teams play Calgary upcoming, while the Avalanche plays consecutive games against Edmonton.

Giguere was talking new math to an old-school guy Sunday evening, and he might as well have been speaking Slovakian.

But I can count to 100, and the Avalanche, oddly enough, could reach 100 points for the sixth time in the club’s history if they win all of their games. Never mind. But they haven’t lost in regulation in March.

And the numbers were alternately good and bad Sunday evening. The Avs fell back by one early, then tied the game before first break. They fell back by one and two in the second period, then made it 3-2. They had a 5-on-3 in the third period, but couldn’t score. With a 5-on-5, they did score to send it into overtime. And with a 5-on-4, they scored to win.

It doesn’t take an accountant or a general manager to figure out that the Avalanche is playing like a playoff-worthy team.

“It took us a long time (this season) to get here. There has been noticeable improvement,” Quenneville said.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Tyreek Hill didn’t know what to do when he started hearing thousands of people in Arrowhead Stadium chanting his name, even as he stood all alone on the frozen turf waiting for the punt.